A for Anything by Damon Knight

Author:Damon Knight [Knight, Damon]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, General
ISBN: 9781892884015
Google: 6JECAAAACAAJ
Amazon: 1892884011
Publisher: Cascade Mountain Publishing
Published: 1998-09-30T04:00:00+00:00

Page 65

"That's right, good. I was thinking of the opera, but that's Friday. Is Mr. Clay here yet?"

"I see, mister." Alex stepped to the door, glanced out. "Just arriving, mister, this minute."

"Well, are you through with this damned neck-cloth?"

"Dick!" came Clay's voice from the outer room. "Let's go —we're late already."

"I haven't had breakfast!" Dick protested.

Clay popped his head in the doorway. "It's almost one o'clock, you fungus. Come on, do you want to see the Tower or don't you? Make up your mind."

"All right." Alex was holding out his new morning jacket; he slippedhis arms into it. It was hand-loomed, watered silk, in a pattern that gave him height. "Are Thor and Johnny coming?" he asked.

"No, just the two of us—I could only get two places." Alex was fastening the belt and chains; Clay picked up the striped silk cap from the dressing table and clapped it on Dick's head. "Come on," he said, dragging him toward the door. "I tell you, we're late."

Clay had a chair waiting. As soon as they got into it the chairboys started off at a trot; but they were hardly well into the main corridor when they slowed down again. There was some sort of turmoil up ahead; people were drawing back to either side of the corridor, chairs and pedestrians alike. They followed suit. Down the wide empty avenue came a little group of men at a walking pace. In the lead was a heavy man of about fifty; he moved slowly and ungracefully, bloated and stiff under a gray mantle. On either side and a little behind walked a Household Guard with a bolstered pistol, the first firearms Dick had seen in Eagles. Behind came an empty

chair pushed by two slobs, and trailing on either side were four or five men in formal dark morning dress.

The man in the lead had a sallow face, jowls loose and shapeless, a blob for a nose. There was a dead cigar clenched in his wide, lipless mouth. He did not turn his head, but glanced from side to side as he walked. His little eyes passed incuriously over Dick and Clay; his gloomy expression did not change; he walked on.

The crowd was beginning to flow back into the corridor, "Who was thatT Dick demanded.

Clay gave him a sidelong glance. "You don't know? That's right, you've never seen him. That was the Boss."

The crowd flowed along, brilliant, glittering, with a cloud of scent and a murmur of laughter. Here were half a dozen East Indians in turbans, hawk-nosed and dark, with flashing eyes; here came a priest of Eblis and a gypsy mountebank, disputing, arm in arm; there was the famous Mrs. Wray, whose intrigues were the talk of Eagles; here came a work detail and a cart loaded with monstrous slabs of flooring. The corridor boomed, clattered, rippled with echoes: this was life. The owner of all this must be a fortunate man; what more could anyone ask in the world?

But if the end of it was nothing but that gray frog-face, and that expression of settled gloom? .

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